


Rissy the Pin-Up Girl (and Lew the Pin-Up Guy?)

by rixie_rhee



Series: In the Mood [11]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Cute, F/M, Fluff, Love, Slightly Smutty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 20:32:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14143980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rixie_rhee/pseuds/rixie_rhee
Summary: Nix’s back is against the bed, Rissy leaning on his shoulder. She kisses his bicep.“I love you.” Smoke curls out from his lips.“I love you, too.” Her eyes close. “I’m so glad you’re home.”He tips her chin up to search her eyes. Maybe the love between Lew and Rissy is not always simple and uncomplicated--it certainly didn’t start that way--but that doesn’t mean it isn’t deep and real. He kisses the tip of her nose; Rissy darts up to kiss his eyelid before collapsing into giggles.“What are you going to do with that film?”“I’m not dropping that roll off. Can you imagine?” She sighs, “I’ll develop it myself.”





	Rissy the Pin-Up Girl (and Lew the Pin-Up Guy?)

He had to work late, or rather, he had a client dinner that included a cocktail or three, but no more than that. And amazingly, Nix’s mind kept wandering back to the girl at home, and the little boy who would likely be asleep in footed pajamas by the time he got there. Through three courses, cigarette smoke and banter--and the pretty waitress who smiled at him just a few seconds longer than she did at anyone else--he just wanted to get home to his wife, his family. Nix let his left hand rest on the table, the plain gold band on his finger subtly reflecting light. There’s an inscription on the inside. _Toujours et toujours, Rissy & Lew._

He turns the band with his thumb before pressing it to his lips. He shakes his head, just barely, and smiles at the waitress, a rueful little smile with a hint of sympathy thrown in. She’s pretty, with legs no man could help but appreciate, but Nix wants to go home.

(And isn’t that a contrast? After all, he’d run all the way to Europe via the US Army after marrying Kathy. Here’s the thing:  Kathy was a lady, a pedigreed girl who knew the right people and had the right manners. She went to cotillions and lunched in places with potted date palms in the corners. She always knew what silverware to use. All of this irritated the fuck out of Nix. He moved in the same circles, but he viewed it all with a healthy dose of irony. She did not.)

Back then, he’d done everything he could think of to avoid going home even when he _was_ home. Let’s not lie, Nix still likes his liquor, he likes to carouse, and it can be a problem. He sees how Rissy’s lips tighten sometimes, but she _talks_ to him; she doesn’t nag, and her voice doesn’t get high and shrill enough to be a pick-axe in his ears. Besides, he knows she’s concerned about _him_ , not what anyone else might think or say.

So, he’s happy to be home, back to his own house and the people who love him. Nix’s house nothing like the one he grew up in. For one, there’s a yard and a garage as it’s not in New York City proper. Clean white clapboard, charcoal grey shutters, and a wide porch, no dark brick or cupolas. For another, no one expects anyone else to be anything other than who or what he or she is. This is the best thing.

The lawn is lush and well maintained, the gravel driveway crunches satisfyingly under both feet and tires. Flower beds bank the porch, and there is lily-of-the-valley contained in troughs, so it doesn’t invade the manicured beds. Someone comes to take care of all of it; Nix and Rissa both have black thumbs.

Pink peonies bloom by the side door. Between the lilacs and the muguet and the peonies, the air is full of spring blossoms. Like many young men before him (twenty-seven isn’t old, is it?), Nix’s thoughts turn to romance. The object of his affection is upstairs, waiting.

He plucks a single peony from the bush. The blossom is so heavy that the stem bends under its weight. Nix springs up his front steps in double-time, one of the vestiges of the war that crops up from time to time. At least this one is harmless, just as how for Nix it will always be P as in Peter and not P as in Paul. Of course, some of those hold-overs are not innocuous, but tonight none of that matters. It’s a spring twilight and Nix is in love. Nix unlocks his front door and unloads the flotsam from his pockets onto the entryway table, throwing his hat on top of all of it.

The mirror shows him a handsome dark-haired man in a suit and tie, white shirt nearly glowing in the evening gloom. He’s been back on US soil and in his civvies over a year, but the sight still startles him sometimes. No more olive drab, no more green or brown wool with brass buttons, no uniform at all. No parachute either. He doffs the jacket and loosens his tie, rolls his sleeves up. It’s warm even inside, spring is on the cusp of giving way to summer.

The house is quiet, but in the comfortable, familiar way in which you know every creak. He can hear fans humming upstairs as takes the steps two at a time.

He stops in Richie’s room first. He is in pajamas with feet, sprawled on his back in his crib. One of his hands is curled by his face. His mother sleeps the same way sometimes. Nix bends to kiss the baby’s soft cheek, careful not to rub five o’clock shadow on his son’s face.

“Good night, baby,” he whispers. A tiny smile and a single dimple appear when his son hears his voice. Nix’s heart swells with love, the simple uncomplicated love of a father for his small child.

“Daddy loves you, Richie.” The baby stirs when Nix touches his miniature fingers, but he doesn’t wake. His little chest rises and falls, his eyelids flutter while his father watches him. Richie sighs in his sleep and Nix turns to leave his son’s room. Nix’s steps are soft, making no sound to wake his child. He leaves the door slightly open, just in case Richie wakes.

Nix continues down the hall, footsteps muted on the wool carpet. His bedroom door is open. There she is, curled away from him on her side in the middle of the big bed. One hip is hiked up, giving her an exaggerated S-curve and her dark hair is fanned out behind her. Her breathing is slow and regular. Her skin is perfectly smooth, in spite of the fan blowing on her.

She’s wearing grey silk panties and not another stitch. Nix climbs up onto the bed to kneel behind her. Warmth radiates from her skin, he can feel it in the air around her, before he even touches her skin. He traces her shoulder blade and the line of her collarbone. Rissy stirs, stretches, and grins at him sleepily, rolling onto her back.

“Hi, Lew.”

“Hi, baby.”

“Give me a kiss hello, stranger.”

Nix happily obliges her, putting an arm around her and holding her close against his chest.

He gives her the flower and she holds it to her bare breasts, thanking him the same way she used to when he would bring her bobby pins or chocolates or a magazine. It may be a flower from her own front yard, but he thought to bring her something pretty, and that’s what she appreciates.

“Thank you.” She looks up, raising her doe eyes and bites her bottom lip.

“You’re welcome.” He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “I missed you tonight.” He swallows. “You look beautiful.”

Rissy leans back against her pillows and gives him the arch smile that does things to his southern regions. Her breasts are barely covered by her arms and her peony. “Did you miss me?” she purrs at him.

“Yes.” His whisper is hoarse.

“Hmm. You should take a picture. Keep me in your wallet.” She points at the highboy with her chin; her camera is resting on top of it.

“Really?”

“If you want to do it, you better hurry before I come to my senses and change my mind.”

Nix gets up and snaps a photo. While it’s obvious she’s not wearing much in the way of clothes, nothing is really showing, either. Until she poses, kneeling with her back arched. Rissy giggles and Nix wonders that once upon a time anyone could have wondered why he spent so much time with the quiet little nurse with sad eyes.

(He knows a little about what she did, though she kept it quiet, discrete. She’s still ashamed of her coping mechanism; it’s Nix’s opinion that she really didn’t do anything wrong. She’s told him little bits and he has an inkling about the rest, but he also knows it isn’t any of his business.)

But here, with him, she’s laughing, holding her flower between her teeth and raising her ass in the air, before she kneels and covers one breast with the peony, leaving the other one naked and the nipple peaky. The flash goes off again and she pouts.

Rissy lies down, one arm behind her head, the blossom resting on her lower belly.

“Fuck, I love you.” Nix lets out a low groan.

“I love you, too. You want to know how much?”

“Yeah, tell me.” It comes out as a growl.

The frilly underwear goes flying past him when she kicks them off. At first, she keeps her peony over her most private places. Just her breasts and the suggestion of more. They’re both laughing. The shutter clicks until finally, when the roll of film is almost gone, she’s naked before him and the camera, but still tasteful, and only ever for him.

The last photo has her holding the flower to her face. She’s caught in three-quarter profile with a half-smile and downcast eyes. The fan is gently blowing strands of her dark hair back, and then across her face as it oscillates. She pushes it behind her ear with her fingertips. He can see all of her, from her freckles to the shadow between her thighs.

“There’s no more film.”

“Come here, then.”

It’s quite possible that Nix has never removed his clothing so quickly before. He almost knocks Rissy right off the bed when he leaps on it.

As it is, they finish on the floor.

Nix’s back is against the bed, Rissy leaning on his shoulder. She kisses his bicep.

“I love you.” Smoke curls out from his lips.

“I love you, too.” Her eyes close. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

He tips her chin up to search her eyes. Maybe the love between Lew and Rissy is not always simple and uncomplicated--it certainly didn’t start that way--but that doesn’t mean it isn’t deep and real. He kisses the tip of her nose; Rissy darts up to kiss his eyelid before collapsing into giggles.

“What are you going to do with that film?”

“I’m not dropping that roll off. Can you imagine?” She sighs, “I’ll develop it myself.”

“That’s right, you told me you could do that.”

“Uh-huh. You can put me in your wallet and take me with you wherever you go.” She nuzzles his arm again and he puts it around her. “I’ll have to shopping, I guess.”

“You poor thing.”

“Yes, poor me. Look at my life.” She gestures at the cool, comfortable room with its understated furniture and soft linens, her closets of drawers and clothes, the dresser topped with vases of fresh flowers that tremble in the fan’s wake. “Lovely home, all the modern conveniences, beautiful clothes, wonderful, perfect child…”

“…a husband who fucking adores you,” Nix growls around his cigarette.

“Can’t forget him, can I?” Rissy plucks the cigarette from Nix’s mouth and climbs into his lap to kiss him.

* * *

 

Rissy’s as good as her word about the photos. A few days later, after she bought her paper, shallow rectangular pans, and her stinking chemicals, Nix finds a plain white envelope on his nightstand. It just says ‘Lew’ in Rissy’s familiar feminine hand, black ink stark against the heavy, creamy stationary.

It contains fourteen snapshots, which Nix kept well-hidden, except for his favorite one. That one did go in his wallet, behind everything else. It had a place in every wallet he had from then on. The edges would become soft and frayed with time. When he had to travel and she couldn’t go with him, he did pull it out to look at her.

It wasn’t because it was the one where Rissy was bare to the camera, the last one. He chose that one because of the expression on her face, the love and the trust behind the big, dancing eyes and arch smile.

* * *

 

Spring turned into summer. One sticky, humid evening Rissy poured Nix a drink, and then another, plying him with whiskey, until he was slightly, happily, agreeably drunk enough to be pliable. She prodded, persuaded, and cajoled until Nix was sprawled on the pool-side lounge chair naked as the day he was born. His eyes were sparkling, his cheeks flushed, lips red as cherries and swollen from Rissy’s kisses.

She caught him on film with his hair falling over his forehead and one foot suspended over the curve of his ass. It was a perfect cheesecake shot. He laughed and posed, giving her his back and peering over his shoulder. Rissy cooed at him and her camera clicked, and Nix reveled at the night air on his skin. Rissy was careful with her pictures, keeping them tempting and not obscene. This became progressively harder. When the roll of film was used up, he reached for her. She evaded him, dove into the water. He followed without any hesitation at all.

* * *

 

Nix would almost be angry, but that first one is the best pictures of his face he’s ever seen. He looks brooding, sexy. He hasn’t seen any other photos of his ass, until he flips to the next photo. His eyes widen at the next one, at the suggestion of his cock, and the next one, with his hand over it--

\--it’s always his cock, never his dick, because ‘dick’ makes him think of, well, Dick. And although Dick is his best friend in the world, and Nix loves him, it is not in _that_ way at all. Nix does not want to think of him when he’s about to come, either when he’s touching himself or fucking his wife. It would be weird. And that’s why Nix (and Rissy when she calls it anything at all) calls it his cock--

“--Rissy!”

“What?” Her voice is mild, and her eyes are Bambi-like in their innocence, but she’s trying hard not to smile or giggle.

He waves the photo in front of her face, trying not to let his own lips pucker into a smirk. “What is this?”

She closes the space between them, taking the slick Kodak paper from his hand. Her arms come around his neck, her body stretching against his, leaving her mouth next to his ear. “Lewis, she murmurs, “Lewis, sometimes I miss you, too.”

* * *

 

\--Rissy kept her photo tucked away, in her nightstand or in her purse if she was traveling. And much as Nix did, she chose her favorite because of his face, what she saw there. When things were difficult, she’d pull that photo out. She’d think of his whiskey-flavored kisses, of warm hands and wandering fingers, how he’d point out constellations in the sky. And she’d remind herself that she could be difficult, too, that she might not nag, but that she could be stonily, obstinately silent. Lew not only put up with it, he’d extend the olive branch more often than not.

So, sometimes she missed him when he was still there. When he was away, she was just longingly sentimental. That was simpler, but it hurt more, the ache that his absence left, because she loves him, needs him, the same way he loves and needs her. And that would always be always true.

And for the most part, by a very large margin, they were happy. And that was always true, too--

* * *

 

No one else ever saw the photos developed from those two rolls of film. Well, except for the first ten exposures from the roll Nix used to photograph Rissy. Those were photos of Richie toddling on the lawn in his stiff, white baby shoes. She had a few of those matted and framed, hung them on the wall.


End file.
